His 1972 PhD thesis was titled "Quantitative Gene Action in Cucurbita Species".
Prior to this appointment, he worked as a research microbiologist at the University of California, a research professor at the University of Arizona, and a resident associate at the Argonne National Laboratory.
In 2011, Starmer was elected as Fellow at the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
[4][5] In 1997, botanists Yuzo Yamada, Tetsuo Higashi, Susumu Ando and Kozaburo Mikata published Starmera which is a genus of fungi within the Phaffomycetaceae family and named in his honour.
[6][7] Then in 1998 C.A.Rosa & Lachance published Starmerella, a genus of fungi within the Saccharomycetales order.